The Scunthorpe Problem

You may have run into this problem sometime while on the internet where you typed the word "class" on a forum and it was automatically changed to "cl***".  Very naive filters like that don't seem to be as common as they were on the early internet but the occasion can still arise.

The name of this problem comes from back in 1996 when residents of Scunthorpe, England were unable to create AOL accounts because their town name included the word "cunt" and was blocked by AOL's filters.  Penistone, Lightwater and Cliterhoe (coincidentally all in England) have also had issues online.

Some other similar amusing cases include the Communauté urbaine de Montréal (CUM) having their website (www.cum.qc.ca) blocked because of the acronym.  The Canadian magazine "The Beaver" was being blocked by some filters and finally changed it's name in 2010 after being around for 90 years.  The Horniman Museum (in England of course) failing to receive their emails.  And emails with "specialist" being blocked because they contained the name of the drug cialis.

Hilarity can also ensue when "bad" words are replaced with a less offensive alternative; for example ass -> butt.  This lead to an article on the sprinter Tyson Gay being changed to Tyson Homosexual.  I think my favourite though is assassinate being changed to buttbuttinate.